Carrolwood (5-8) (Patreon)

Chapter Five

As Carl drove to school the next morning, he kept glancing in the rear view mirror at his hair. The braids really were just so pretty. He couldn’t stop looking at them! As he drove, he assessed his new hairstyle. Negative— bridesmaid hair. Very girly. Positive— his hair was no longer in the way, but instead coiled neatly around his head. Negative— his head seemed to weigh, like, five pounds more than before. Positive— he sort of looked more like a boy. Like many young men, Carl had many features that shaded toward feminine. He had full lips, big eyes, and a cute, pert nose framed by high, sharp cheekbones. He was what some would call a “pretty boy.” That face, framed by long, lustrous hair, had looked decidedly more feminine. Surprisingly, with his hair now up in braids, he looked more himself. Just himself with a silly hairstyle no boy would ever wear to school.

As Carl parked his car, Sunni came out to greet him. “Dude,” she said. “You look like a princess.”

Carl rolled his eyes, even as he touched his hair self-consciously. “I lost the bet,” he said. “This bitch doesn’t welsh.”

“Did you just call yourself a bitch?” Sunni said.

“It’s— I can’t help it,” Carl said. “I hope you know it took for-ever for my mom to do my hair.”

“You sound like such a girl,” Sunni chuckled. “And, I know,” she said. “Do you think I picked that hairstyle by accident? I was hoping it would mess up your studying for the French test.”

Carl’s mouth dropped open. “You little sneak!”

“Hey, just trying to win, babe.”

“Well, I’ll have you know I still got all my studying done. So there!”

“I took a shot. Later, hater!”

Sunni walked away. Carl fumed. Of course, their competition was not over, despite the changes. He decided he would have to look for chances to turn it to his advantage next! We’ll just see how we can turn the tables on Mr. Sneaky Sneak!” He said, giggling evilly. “I mean Miss,” he corrected himself.

As Carl walked into school and down the crowded hallway to his locker, he received a lot of stares and comments. The girls actually seemed to really like his new style. ‘Oh, my God! I am so jealous! You look adorable!” Carl had never really wanted to make girls jealous with his pretty braids, so the comments hurt, as much as they were intended as praise. Once more, he found girls compulsively drawn to touch his hair. He resolved to stop fighting it, tolerating their gentle caresses with a pained smile.

The boys were boys. I will not share their rude comments here, as I find them most uncouth. Suffice to say, they razzed Carl mercilessly, a state of being he suffered greatly not only because he was not used to being the subject of ridicule, but because he could not answer back without revealing his flute like voice. He was determined to hide his shame as much as possible.

He crushed his French exam, finishing precisely 12 seconds before Sunni, who growled at him. He stuck his tongue out and went back to his seat, triumphant.

“Wiccans did not do this,” Dr. Reilly said. 

“You’re sure?” Sunni said.

“I am,” Reilly said, looking over the tops of her frames. “First, what you describe would take incredible magic energy. Incredible. I’ve never seen anything like it in my lifetime. Nothing even close. Second, and this really is most crucial, wiccans do not use our magic to inflict harm on others. We are not story book witches!”

“Could someone have turned to dark magic?” Carl asked.

“I would see it in their aura,” Reilly said. ‘I’m sorry, but I do not think the solution lies in any Wiccan I know of.”

They got up to leave. Sunni opened the door for Carl, making a small bow. “Mademoiselle,” she said.

“La jerk,” Carl said, sassily, of course.

“We effectively eliminated the Wiccans,” Sunni said, tugging on her beard. “That only leaves 90% of the school.”

“Thank God,” Carl said. “That makes it so much easier now. Um, well, anyway, I think we should probably go talk to the most likely suspect of them all!”

“Number three?” Sunni said.

“Number three.”

While Carl and Sunni had spent the whole of their academic careers vying for number one, and certain that they would at worst land at #2, right behind them had been the girl they referred to as number three: Corporal Genet. The daughter of a four-star general, Genet had been raised from birth for a glorious military career, a destiny she embraced with zealous determination. Head of the ROTC, she was tough, smart and determined. 

“That is one damn fine beard,” Genet said, looking at Sunni. “Damn, girl.  I am impressed.”

Genet was dressed in her perfectly pressed uniform. Every single detail of her person was sharp and neat and precise, as was her ROTC office, as was her walk as was her talk. Even the halo of kinky black hair that surround her ebony face was remarkably precise. 

“Right on,” Sunni said, first bumping Genet, who did a double take.

“They changed your voices, too?” Genet said. “I heard about the hair.”

“They totally changed our voices,” Carl said. 

“Good lord,” Genet said. “That is no voice for a man, young or otherwise.”

Carl’s hand crept to his throat.

“Like the braids, though,” Genet said, touching them. “That’s some first-rate weaving right there.”

“The reason we are here,” Sunni said, but Genet interrupted.

“Sit. Sit. You want a Monster? Water?”

Sunni and Carl sat. “No. We don’t want to take up much of your time.”

“I’m gonna get a Monster,” Genet said. “Addicted to these things. Canned energy. B vitamins. We’d had this back in Vietnam, we would have won the war!” She opened her mini fridge to reveal a solid wall of energy drinks. “You sure you don’t want one?”

“I’ll have one,” Carl said.

“Let’s see.” She grabbed a white can for herself, and a pink one, which she tossed to Carl, who caught it like the boy he still mostly was.

“You’re here because as the number three student in our class, I am a likely suspect in your situation,” Genet said, cracking open her Monster and taking a swig. “Ahhhhhh,” she said. “Goes right to the blood stream and BAM!”

“You do seem a likely culprit,” Sunni said.

“It isn’t me,” Genet said. “Tactically, it makes no sense. If I were going to knock you out of the competition, I would do something to either make you sick and miss a bunch of school or slow your cognition. Those would likely draw suspicion, however, so I wouldn’t even do that. Maybe cause you to become super horny so you just want to have sex all the time. That would just make you teen-agers. How does giving you a beard stop you? It doesn’t. So, I wouldn’t do it. Didn’t do it. Believe me or don’t believe me, not my problem.”

“That was actually pretty convincing,” Sunni said, glancing at Carl.

“I’m, like, totally sold,” he said, shrugging. 

“Good, because now I am going to turn this around and blow your minds.”

“What do you mean?” Sunni said.

“I want to help you. It offends me as a soldier to see this kind of yellow-bellied snake in the grass no good backstabbing behavior. It has no place at Carrolwood, and I want to see the person caught. Punished. Drawn and quartered! Give me the deets. Maybe I can help.”

They described the sudden nature of the changes. The persistence. How Sunni could not shave her beard, for example. How Carl’s throat had been altered to give him a female’s voice. 

Corporal Genet listened intently, her finger steepled under her chin. Once they had finished, she remained deep in thought. “I assume you eliminated magic?”

“First thing,” Sunni said.

“Then I can think of only one thing that could bring about these kinds of changes to your reality,” Corporal Genet said. Of course, she could also just have said what that one thing was, but she liked a little drama. So, she paused and waited as the tension built, the old-fashioned clock on the wall behind her ticking… ticking… the second hand moving around the dial.

“Omigod!” Carl finally said. “Tell us!”

“A multi-verse Dice-aumatic.” 

“Um, like, what?” Carl said.

“My God, man, you talk just like a girl!” Genet said, bursting to her feet. 

“You are familiar with the multi-verse theory?”

“Of course,” Carl and Sunni answered in unison, annoyed she would even ask.

Nevertheless, Genet explained, which is fortunate dear reader, in case one of you good souls might just be a little fuzzy. “An infinite number of realities lie parallel to our own. Any version of reality we might imagine, exists. Right now, right along ours. There is a reality, for example, where Carl is a cute girl. A reality where Sunni has a massive beard. And, so on.”

“They covered this in the Avengers,” Sunni said.

“Correct!” Genet shouted. “Yes! But, they did not anticipate the notion of a dice-aumatic.”

“Oh, wow, like, yeah,” Carl said, catching on. “A device that could take a piece of another reality and splice it into ours.”

“I see. I see,” Sunni said. “So, like a film editor, they could take a reality where Carl has long hair…”

“And splice it into this one!” Genet said. 

“That explains why I can’t get rid of this beard,” Sunni said. 

“In the reality the splice was taken from, you have a big beard. The splice doesn’t change.”

“So, the beard doesn’t change.”

“Bingo!” Genet said 

“I still don’t understand why?” Carl said. 

“Find your why, find your tormentor,” Genet said. “You should probably get them profiled.”

Carl and Sunni looked at each other. “Millmore,” they said at once.

“He’s weird, but he’s good,” Genet said.

“Thanks so much,” Carl said. “You’ve been such a help!”

“Yeah, mad skills,” Sunni said, fist bumping Genet.

Carl could help but notice no one offered him a fist bump.

As they left Genet’s office, Carl and Sunni felt a renewed sense of hope. The multiverse splicer theory held promise, and the idea of seeking a profile from Millmore was a positive plan of action toward finding their enemy. Angus Millmore held the unique distinction of being the weirdest kid at Carrolwood. The weirdest. It was not just his coke bottle glasses, nor the grating sound of his weed blower voice. He also possessed the most baffling collection of tics and socially awkward habits of any student. Just to illustrate, Kennedy once saw him standing in a corner on one leg, tugging at his hair. Some of the other kids were laughing at him, and so feeling a bit of pity, she said, “Hi!”

Angus looked at her and barked, “Green!” Then hopped away on one foot.

A second illustration: Ahmed had been paired with him for a class project. Much to his surprise, Millmore had proven an excellent partner, eagerly accepting and completing his share of the work. All had seemed well, and in fact, Ahmed had completely revised his opinion of the eccentric fellow. Until the day of the presentation. Angus had shown up with a gold star pasted to his forehead. Each time his turn came to deliver part of the oral portion, he shouted, “I’m Alpha Centauri!” The class laughed. Ahmed seethed. They got a C on their project. 

These are but two examples of our young friends’ “moments” which, of course, had become legend. And yet, like all Carrolwood students, Angus possessed brilliance, and his brilliance lay in the field of criminal psychology. Indeed, as a ten-year-old, he had correctly unmasked the notorious “Stink Bug Killer” who had eluded police for nearly a decade. That had been the beginning of what was already a legendary career as a profiler, consulted regularly by the FBI to help them crack impossible cases.

So, the thought of putting such a brilliant mind of their case gave them each hope for a quick resolution. On the other hand, they also suffered a great anxiety over what change would happen to them today. “Whatever it is, I don’t want boobs,” Carl had said.

“You’d look hot as hell with a big old pair of boobies,” Sunni had said.

“Har, har,” Carl said, crossing his arms over his chest nervously at even the thought. “I hope you lose yours. Everyone will call you flatty”

“That would suck,” Sunni said, disgusted at the thought of having a flat, dumb chest. It would be like she’d turned back into a little girl again!

But their tormentor proved more clever than they had imagined. Because nothing changed that day, which proved almost as terrible. They waited. And waited. When they got home from school, they inspected their bodies. Looked over themselves, sure something had changed. But no. Carl called Sunni. “I kinda think I’m the same,” he said.

“Me, too,” Sunni said. “Odd.”

“Maybe it’s over?”

“I wouldn’t count on it, doll. We’ll see Millmore tomorrow and find out what we can.”

“Kay,” Carl said. “Nighty night!”

“Girl,” Sunni said, hanging up.” 

It had taken so long to get his hair done and the braids looked so pretty, that Carl decided to keep them. It was easier, anyway, and they still looked good. He did, however, spend an hour watching hair tutorial videos. There were so many styles! He didn’t know if he could ever learn them all.

***

That night, Carl dreamt he was hanging at Ahmed’s house. They were hanging out at the pool, doing cannonballs, trying to make the biggest splash, jumping in, laughing, swimming over to the ladder on the deep end, climbing out to run around the edge of the pool, jump in again.

Carl leapt, high in the air, curled up and crashed into the water, the muffled sound of the splash filling his ears. He emerged, swam over to the ladder, grabbing the rails, pulling himself up, feeling the water sluicing down his body…

Ahmed, Lee and Jack stared, mouths hanging open. “What?” Carl said, confused. He reached up and ran his hands through his hair, arching his back. He heard one of the guys moan, “Christ.”

His hands on top of his head, he said, “you okay?” He shrugged, and he felt his chest… bounce. He looked down and saw two firm, round naked breasts swaying on his chest, nipples hard, droplets of water clinging to the perfect skin. Carl screamed and threw his arms over his breasts…. Feeling their full soft weight fill his arms…

He sat up in bed with a shout of fright. Threw down the covers and looked at his… flat chest. “Omigod,” he said. “Omigod.” He climbed out of bed and examined himself. His body was still the same as it had been that morning. It was all a dream. Or, nightmare.

Carl found himself consumed with fear that he was going to pop out his own pair of boobies. Where he had once taken a great deal of pleasure in checking out the maidenly swelling of the girl’s blouses, now each time he glanced at a girl he felt — scared. What would it be like to have breasts like Callie’s? Or Jenna’s? He found himself holding his books in his arms, covering his chest, he felt strangle tingling and he even felt, for a moment, like he did have breasts, soft, round breasts stringing against the front of his shirt.. but when he looked down, nothing.

He felt certain it was an omen. The next change would be boobs. His shirt would pop open and big, creamy, soft breasts would spill forth, while all the guys stared and laughed. It came time for English class. Carl’s oral report on The Hunger Games was due. He wrote a note to the teacher, explaining his lost voice. She nodded. “You poor thing. How about if I get a volunteer to read your report for you?”

Carl nodded. 

“I love your hair,” the teacher said, touching his braids. Carl smiled.

He’d been hoping for a delay, but he didn’t know if he would ever get his voice back, so this seemed like a good option. Then, when Kennedy raised her hand to volunteer, his heart sank. Kennedy was not a skilled public speaker. She took his report from him, walked to the front of the room and placed it on the podium. Then, doing a lip trill and coughing into her fist, she began:

“The Hunger Games: A study in the evolving portrayal of women. Hmmn. Kind of a weird topic for a boy. Well, so, anyway….” She started to skim over the report. “I’m just going to summarize. Pretty much, this looks at Katniss, who is badass. She’s cool, which Carl points out…”

She’s butchering it! Carl felt his anger building. Kennedy was making him sound like a complete idiot! His report was a masterpiece, and she was making it sound like something an 8th grader would write— and not a super smart eight grader either. He couldn’t take it. “That is not what I wrote!” He squealed, leaping to his feet. The class laughed at the angry sprite tones coming out of him, but Carl didn’t care. His academic reputation was too important. “Thank you, Kennedy, but I got this?” Carl said.

“How come you sound like my little sister?” Kennedy said.

“I thought you lost your voice?” Teacher said.

“I did lose MY voice,” Carl said. “For some reason, I sound like this now. Like, deal with it?”

The class laughed. The teacher looked utterly perplexed. 

“May I begin?” Carl asked.

The class was chuckling and grinning, smirking, and laughing. Carl held his head high. “Class, class,” the teacher said. “Inappropriate.”

The students immediately settled down. They were, please recall, superlative. They were teenagers, but they were all quite disciplined in certain areas, and one of those was to immediately adopt proper decorum should any adult utter the dread word, “inappropriate.”

Carl took a moment. Allowed the silence to linger. He’d spoken now. In his true voice, or what was currently his true voice. It was appalling for a boy, but he felt good to break his silence. “The Hunger Games…” he began, filling his piping voice with as much gravity as he could manage. “A study in the evolving portrayal of women…. Which is a so totally appropriate topic, by the way…”

As soon as class was over, he bolted for the door. Kennedy came up beside him and put a hand on his arm. “Sunni is so.. mean!” She said.

“I know, right?” Carl said, playing along. “She’s, like, so totally full of herself!”

“You even talk like a girl,” Kennedy said, puzzled. “How did she do that?”

“I wish I knew?” Carl said, starting to feel uncomfortable. It was… unmanly to be taking to a girl and to sound even more feminine than she did, especially one he’d dated. He saw the bathroom and decided to make a break. “I need to tinkle,” he said, immediately horrified the word ‘tinkle’ had come out of his mouth. He grabbed the bathroom door and started to pull it open, desperate to get away.

He heard a scream and saw a girl at the sink, putting on lip gloss.

“That’s the little girl’s room,” Kennedy said, chuckling.

“Omigod,” Carl said, slamming the door shut. “Omigod!”

His voice now revealed to, as he would put it, EVERYONE in the whole UNIVERSE! Carl decided he might as well go to lunch and sit with his friends. When he walked in the lunchroom and saw his buddies, he immediately remembered his dream, all his friends drooling over his Kate Uptons. His chest tingled, and he felt himself blush, but he resisted the urge to cross his arms over his flat chest and sat down.

“Dude, bro, Carl, my man…” his friends said as he sat down. He just nodded.

“We heard about your voice,” Ahmed said. “Bummer.”

Carl nodded. Despite his breakthrough in class, he felt ashamed for his friends to hear him talk like a girl. “Dude, we’re your friends,” Ahmed said. “You don’t need to worry about us making fun of you or anything.”

“Because you WILL totally make fun of me?” Carl said, deciding to just get over it.

The guys burst out laughing, Carl’s cheeks getting pinker. “You sound like a cheerleader or something!” Ahmed said.

“Or a six-year-old!” Jack added.

Carl punched them both on the arm. “Do I hit like a little girl?”

“Pretty much,” Jack said, rubbing his arm.

“Jerk!”

After some more ribbing, the guys settled down and turned their attention to regular guy talk. “Look at the way that skirt rides on her booty… legs a mile long… look at the tits on Holly… I’d love to motorboat those all night long…”

“Like, me too…” Carl said, wanting to join in even as the comment awakened his growing breast anxiety. What would his friends say if he came to school one day with jugs? 

At Carl’s comment, the guys kind of stopped and looked at him.

“What?”

“So, you do still like girls?” Ahmed said.

“I’m still me,” Carl said. “I’m so all about the ladies.”

More laughter. Carl decided he would just have to put up with it for now. It seemed he would not be taken seriously as a guy as long as he was, like, speechifying so girly girl.

Word of Carl’s change had spread all around school, so he was not surprised when Mrs. Calloway immediately approached him at the beginning of theater rehearsal. “Such pretty braids!” She gushed, immediately touching them.

“Thanks,” Carl said, trying to sound like he meant it. There was no point fighting this, either he decided.

Mrs. Calloway almost hid her surprise at the sound of Carl’s voice, but he saw the shock flicker across her face. “You’re a soprano,” Calloway said.

“Really?” Carl said, though he’d suspected as much. “I’m am sure this will all be fixed before the show?” He added. “I still want to play the Pirate King, like, so much!”

“Well, Carli-“

“It’s still Carl?”

“Carl. I have given this some thought, and I want you to play the Pirate King even if your voice doesn’t change back.”

“Wait, what?”

“It’s almost like non-traditional casting. How awesome would it be for the Pirate King to bring a strong female voice to the show?”

Carl did not at all like the idea that he was now “a strong female voice.” Nor did he relish the idea of getting in front of the whole world and singing, sounding like some cutesy little Kpop idol. But, he was sure that was not going to happen, because this would all be fixed. 

“What do you say?” Calloway said, still toying with his hair.

“I say, let’s do it!” 

“Yes! You’re so brave.”

The orchestra adjusted the key of Oh, Better Far to Live and Die— The Pirate King’s big number— to match Carl’s new vocal register. They began to play, and he strode out to his place downstage. He had not sung, really sung, since his voice changed, but he just fell back on his training, giving himself lots of air:

I am the Pirate King?

And it is, it is a glorious thing

To be the Pirate King?

Carl was trying to sing the song with masculine bravado, but he wouldn’t help but put the little lifts at the end of the lines, turning statements into questions, sounding not like a bold and fearless pirate but a sweet girl trying her hardest to be cute.

When the number ended there was some slight applause, and Mrs. Calloway came up to Carl. “Okay, your voice is super pretty. Just work on being a little more… “ she made fists and air-boxed. “Tough. Charlize Theron. Michelle Rodriguez. Think— Badass.”

“Or, um, I could play it like a guy?” Carl said.

“Women can be tough, too,” Calloway said. “You should wear your hair like that for the show, by the way. It’s perfect.”

“Thanks,” Carl said, hiding his irritation. Charlize Theron? For reals?

Kennedy touched him on the arm. “Luv! Your voice is like crystal!”

He felt someone shove him and turned to see Sunni grinning at him through her mass of beard. “Your voice is so pretty!” She mocked. “You sound just like Elsa!”

“Stop!”

“Let it go. Let it go,” Sunni kept mocking.

“Quit!” Carl squealed. 

“Quit! Stop!” Sunni kept on, laughing.

The other kids watched, curious. Were they flirting?

The rumors started to sizzle around social media before practice even ended.

Millmore had agreed to meet after theater practice. They’d emailed him on his Compuserve Account— it was the best way to reach him they’d been told. He told them to meet him down by Lake Alice, where they found him sitting on the old bike rack. He had a bag of popcorn in his hands, from which he dipped and nibbled. “No need to waste time with ritual greetings,” Millmore said, his eyes locked on the lake. 

“Okay. Hi, so...” Carl started.

“No need for social niceties,” Millmore said. “Your case intrigues me. I read the email. Tell me everything again. Every detail. You never know which detail is the ONE.”

“Um, so, like, okay, well, I was just like so looking forward to senior year…” Carl started, his voice extra squeaky with excitement.

“Stop!” Millmore said.

“Whaaaa?” Carl squeaked.

“You tell it,” Millmore said, gesturing toward Sunni.

Carl huffed. Sunni related the details of their changes in clear, simple, concise language. Carl tried to jump in a couple times, but she cut him off. He finally just played with a strand of hair that had escaped from his braids, and was dangling at his cheek, while the “boys” talked.

When Sunni finished, Millmore tossed a piece of popcorn in the air and caught it in his mouth. “Okay. Okay.”

Having heard of his brilliance, Sunni and Carl both kind of thought he would just shout, eureka or something and tell them who did it. They waited. He shoved more popcorn in his mouth, chewing and mumbling, pieces of the popcorn spitting out his mouth and tumbling down the front of his tie. “Turns and twists, twists and turns…”

“So, like, do you have any suspects?” Carl asked.

“I have work to do!” Millmore shouted, throwing his popcorn in the air. “The puzzle is a hand!” With that he leapt to his feet and ran off toward the lake, waving his arms and shouting, “Excelsior!”

“Is he, I don’t understand?” Carl said. “What’s happening?”

Sunni nudged him. “He’s on the case. Let’s go.”

“I still haven’t changed again?” Carl said, as they walked back toward campus.

“Me, neither.”

“The suspense is driving me crazy!” 

“My mom’s here. Gotta run,” Sunni said. 

“Buh-bye!” Carl said, hating that he couldn’t seem to stop himself from being such a— ditz? Well, he could only hope Millmore would crack the case and fast. In the meantime, like, he would just have to deal. He got in his car and started driving him. “Let it go, let it go,” he found himself singing. “I don’t know the words to this song!” Shoot. He did sound like Elsa. Or, maybe, Elsa’s little sister.

.

Chapter Six

The week passed, dear reader. There were no more changes. Let us, for now, turn our attention to what was going on with Sunni, pretty, pretty Sunni, who was now, with her mighty beard, looking a bit rugged and handsome. Though she had seemed to take her changes more in stride than Carl, that was actually not the case. Sunni liked being a girl. She enjoyed being a female. She had, it must be said, sometimes wondered what it would like to be a guy. To be big and strong and sweaty. But she had never wished to have a beard. Not once. The mere presence of the beard and her deep voice had altered her relationships with so many people.

Sunni continued to find things between her and her dad— weird. He suddenly felt the need to establish his manhood, as if the two of them were in competition. He’d dusted off his much disused weight set in the garage and had been lifting, a fact he’d made sure to mention to her. Repeatedly. He would bring it up at random times and for seemingly no reason. Sunni would come home and say, “Hey, Dad” and instead of saying something like, “how was school?” He would say, “I just got done doing curls. My biceps are swole.”

She got it, but she didn’t get it. Despite her mountain man beard and Dothraki warlord voice, she was still his little girl. She missed being treated like his little girl. Being— a daughter. She was still Sunni, and it had all been odd because everyone seemed to talk to her like she was a boy now. Or, rather, listen to her like she was a boy. Or, a man. It was a revelation to her how much people just seemed to LISTEN. Really, LISTEN. The deep voice and the beard were power!

But, it also meant the other girls talked less around her. It felt like she made them nervous. Like they didn’t feel comfortable opening up, talking freely. Like they thought of her not as just a guy, but like a grown-up. Sunni needed her friends, her squad, and she felt more alone, more isolated since her changes.

The one person who seemed un-phased was her mother. Mom was still Mom, ever supportive and loving and sunny and huggy and sweet. She embraced the beard and the voice. “Oh, you sound so commanding!” She’d say. Or, “your beard is so beardly. You are quite the presence!” Sunni couldn’t tell her mother how much it meant to her. I mean that, reader. Literally. Much as Carl had found himself chirping in the sing song cadences of a teen girl, Sunni had found herself speaking in the flat, more monotonous manner of a male. Often, she just grunted. Her Mom did not seem to mind or notice, but it bothered Sunni when she wanted to say, “Mom! You’re the best!” And instead she said, “Okay” in a flat, dead voice. When her friends were gushing on about something, as in “The new season of Riverdale is everything!” Sunni would respond with something like, “It’s a’ight.”

Her feelings were bottled up. She simply could not express them.

The two of them agonized all week, wondering what would change and when. The tension built day by day. On Friday, they were so stressed they imagined changes happening hour by hour. Carl’s leg fell asleep, and the tingling made him scream like a horror movie drama queen. Sunni’s backpack got caught on a door, and she howled in rage, her voice booming down the hall like thunder. They saw Millmore on occasion, walking down the hall with elaborate looking scanning equipment making all manner of beeps and bops. Or, with an old-fashioned magnifying glass, staring intently at a spot on the wall. If they tried to talk to him, though, he would just say something nonsensical and then run from them as fast as he could, waving his arms. He did send them daily emails with the same message: Making progress.

At the end of rehearsal on Friday they stood in front of school and talked while Sunni waited for her Mom. “Maybe we should, um, you know, do our own investigating? Not just wait on Millmore?”

Sunni was in a bad mood, and Carl’s effeminate way of ending just about every statement as if it were a question grated on her nerves, though she usually found it kind of sweet. She tried to control herself and just say nothing, but it seemed to just burst out of her. “Statements aren’t questions? Like, a-kay?”

“You know I can’t help it,” Carl said, concentrating hard to keep from letting his voice rise on the last word. 

‘You just did,” Sunni said. “You just did help it.”

“You’re so grumpy,” Carl said, focusing again. “God!”

“I always found you annoying,” Sunni said. “But now it’s unbearable. Could you SHUT UP?”

Carl took a step back. Raised his hands. “I am not even!” He said. “Buh-byeeee!” He turned and walked away.

Sunni shook her head, then heard a little honk as her mother pulled up. She had been wondering about investigating— herself. But she sick of Carl.

This early in the semester, most of the social activities were low key. Getting together with some friends for pizza and movies. That sort of thing. Carl’s friends were playing Dungeons and Dragons, and they begged him to come, but he just wasn’t feeling it. Besides, he had a lot of studying to do. And he needed to do something about his hair. In fact, he was having a hair emergency.

His halo braids had started to pull out. There were fly away hairs, and the braids themselves had lost the tightness that had made them so pretty. Carl, after watching hours of videos about how to do different hairstyles, had come to realize that he’d not only been given long hair, but had been infused with a feminine obsession with his hair that actually seemed to exceed anything he’d ever seen from Sunni (let us remember that Sunni hid her extraordinary skin and hair routine, preferring everyone to thinks she was just “born with it.”). And so, Carl was pleased and a bit excited to really have a chance to sit down and do something with his hair.

Carl had approached his new experience the same way he approached everything: research. And so once he left little Miss Grumpy Pants and went to his car, he headed to a drugstore and pulled out his list, filling his basket with the supplies he would need: shampoo and conditioner, oils and hair ties and bobby pins and turtle clips and brushes and combs, a salon quality hair dryer and on and on. The change had not— yet— given Carl a delight in shopping, nor had it provided him immunity from being a bit embarrassed as he shopped for items he considered to reside firmly in the realm of the female. Yet, his compulsion to fix his hair over-rode his boyish embarrassment, forcing him to purchase what he needed. He did, however, twice flee the hair accessories aisle when girls from school came in the store, going on to the magazine rack and pretending the read Sports Illustrated, his basket of feminine plunder hidden behind his legs. 

He hoped they didn’t notice how sloppy his braids had gotten. Girls could be so judge.

At home, sighing with relief as he closed the door to his room, he set about his new ritual. First, Carl washed his long hair and then treated with conditioner— twice. After, he used a rake comb to gently work out any knots. He had read that rough combing and brushing could cause split ends, so his motions were delicate and fine as he worked his wet hair. He then turned his hair dryer on low— hot air was also so bad for hair!- and gently brushed his hair as he dried it, patiently working and waiting, willing to put in the extra time to make sure he kept his hair pretty, pretty.

Once his long hair was dry— it was so bouncy and shiny!- he turned to the numerous hair style ideas he pinned to his board on Pinterest. Indeed, Carl had been amazed to discover just how many different kinds of hairstyles there were to choose from— even just counting the ones currently in style— and he’d briefly been paralyzed facing the array of choices girls faced. He made a note to himself to research how much time and energy women had to expend on things like hair, and whether it impacted their ability to compete with men. After spending some hours looking through his options, Carl had managed to narrow his list down to the following: a low, wavy ponytail with a sleek top, a messy and slouch low braid with a sleek top,, a simple side braid with a messy top, a half-updo with a twisted bun, a low chignon, a half up-do with a bubble braid, an exquisite high bun up do, or space buns. He’d briefly considered a Princess Leia, but it just didn’t seem right as he was really more of a Rey man.

Carl dithered. He started this one, started that one. He just couldn’t decide! Is, this, like, a change that was made in me? He wondered. Or, is it, um, just the result of choice overload? Carl had never struggled to make decisions before, and it frustrated him so! Having already experienced the halo braid— and it was quite a hit, he had to admit— he decided to try something new, and finally after much sighing and many frustrated little ‘unh!” sounds, he settled on the hairstyle he’d found called the “exquisite bun up-do.” It would keep the hair out of his way, he told himself, and it would also prove an interesting challenge. The description under the picture— and the girl was smoking hot, he would love to do her— said it was easy. Yet, looking at the hair, and even with his advanced intellect, Carl had no idea how anyone could get her hair to look like that. Things certainly are more complex for the ladies! So, he watched the how-to video and went to work, a bobby pin clenched in his teeth as he gathered his hair and went to work.

An hour later, a triumphant Carl held his phone up and snapped a selfie. His hair looked magnifique! He was so proud of himself he ended up taking three pictures— which he would share with no one, of course, and then he went to his bedroom mirror and admired it some more. You go girl, he thought, teasing the stands that framed his face. It was kind of fun, he decided, to play with his hair. Maybe even after he was back to normal, he’d grow his out. Short hair was so— lame?

Finally, Carl tore himself away from the fascinating image of his fabulous hair. He did have studying to do. Whatever else happened, he was determined to be valedictorian. He climbed onto his bed with his smart-pad and started reading Les Miserable— in French. But despite his best efforts, at least ten percent of his brain was gleefully considering how he should do his hair for graduation.

The weekend passed without changes or progress from Millmore. Carl studied and played with different hairstyles, much to the chagrin of his mother, who found herself annoyed that her son was spending his time practicing buns and braids and updos.

Sunni’s dad invited her to come lift with him. Sunni said, “Yeah.” It would be a chance to spend time with her dad and bolster his fragile male ego. Athletic, yes, but genetics being what they were, she lagged far behind her dad in upper body. He clearly felt much better about himself as he proved he could outfit his little girl. It made Sunni happy— and sad— but mostly happy, as she didn’t like making her father feel like less of a man. It was good for him, she decided, to show his strength, even if he did have pitiful facial growth and a kind of high-pitched voice.

Chapter Seven

Just when the anxiety over their impending changes had faded and both Carl and Sunni had come to feel that maybe they were done being transformed, they transformed. 

The changes happened Monday. For Carl, it was during gym class. Carl had gone back to the exquisite bun updo for Monday, much to the gushing delight of the girls and the usual ridicule from the boys. He’d even begun to forget about his voice in the sense that it no longer sounded odd to him to hear the chirping sounds of a nightingale flowing mellifluously from his lips. And so it was that as he and the other kids in gym class played volleyball inside the gym— it was, sad to say— raining outside- he was calling, “I got it! I got it!” When he changed. Carl was so intent on what he was doing, carefully popping the ball up, setting it perfectly Mandy Wilcox could leap in the air and spike it mercilessly into the faces of the other team he didn’t even notice his new feature. “Yeah!” Carl squealed, high fiving his triumphant team mate.

Which is when his arch-nemesis, Matt Manning, you will remember him as the one who embarrassed Carl at soccer practice, sneered, “Nice shorts.”

“What?”  Carl said, but even as he did be became aware that his shorts felt very tight and exceedingly small. In fact, they felt like they ended at the very tops of his thighs. They felt the way a girl’s short shorts looked. Carl looked down. He was, indeed, wearing a pair of peach colored nylon short shorts. And it was hard to tell looking down but—

“Your legs!” Mandy said.

“What?” Carl said, touching his legs, realizing they were smooth and hairless.

“They are really sexy,” Mandy said.

“For a girl,” Matt added. Matt’s attention, however, had been drawn to Carl’s rear end, which was now as perfectly formed as that of any girl on campus. Indeed, his hips had rounded as well, and from the waist down Carl now had the body of a teen model. Carl’s tooshie was now so glorious an example of female perfection, that even though Matt knew it belonged to a boy, he could not help but shake his head in admiration. He would even have complimented Carl on his truly fine posterior, but he knew to comment on a young woman’s booty, even when it belonged to a young man, was taboo at Carrollwood Day School— at least when there were teachers around.

“Oh, no,” Carl said, once more feeling the full-body shame he’d felt when his voice changed. They were all looking at him— boys and girls and teachers— looking at him standing there in short shorts just like those worn by many of the girls, and given that he had not yet really seen his shapely legs nor his truly impressive booty, he was more humiliated and ashamed to find he was cross-dressing in front of everyone. “Mr. Gravely?” He said. “Can I, um…?”

“Yeah. Yeah, yeah…” Gravely said, disturbed by the feelings he was feeling toward the legs he was trying not to stare at. “It’s fine.”

Carl hurried off to the locker room, his coltish legs flashing, his newly delightful backside wiggling. The girls couldn’t help but notice his gait had become graceful and sweetly feminine. The boys couldn’t help notice— and the feeling disturbed them and confused them— that Carl’s butt was the bomb

‘Poor guy,” Mandy said. And everyone nodded in agreement. What would it be like for a boy to be so—- sexy? None of them could even imagine.

There was a full length mirror in the locker room, and Carl stood in front of it, his hands over his mouth to hold back a scream, as he looked at his gorgeous legs in the mirror, at his rounded hips, at his short shorts. He shook his head, refusing to believe it. His legs looked longer, and they had the pleasing round shape he had so often admired on young ladies. His ankles were small and pretty. He turned to the side and saw how his now plump read end had the lifted, rounded shape sure to drive any boy wild. His fear of having breasts forgotten, he now wanted to curl up into a ball and die. “I look.. my legs…? I’m…. No… no… no…”. His soft voice echoed around the locker room mocking him, a pretty voice that now matched his pretty legs. As he looked in horror at his sexy legs, he idly fixed his hair, not even realizing he was doing it.

It must be said at this point, that everything masculine in Carl wilted just a little to see his body now taking on the shape of a very desirable female. He had looked many times at legs like these and felt himself grow hot with lust. He had enjoyed the sight of rears shaped like his new one, and he had experienced impure thoughts. He’d been a popular boy, strong and well-formed, and it felt like a punch in the gut to know that so much been taken from him, replaced with soft, round and sexy. He considered running away. Getting into his car, driving home, crawling under the covers and never coming out. But, he had never skipped out on school in his life, and despite what was obviously an emergency, he did not want to risk a blemish on his record.

More, there was a test in Economics. A big test.

Carl had no choice. He would just have to lower his head and charge through this day, endure it and move on. There was no other option. He took some comfort in the thought that he would at least be wearing trousers, so no one would see—

Carl pulled open the door to his locker and shook his head, once more sighing, “no… no… no.” He thought things could not get worse, but they had. Hanging in his locker was a pleated, tartan skirt. A crisp white blouse. Looking down, he saw a pair of girl’s shoes with little buckles. Really?” He shrieked. “Really?”

He stared at the girl’s uniform in horror. It was— a girl’s uniform. He could not possibly wear it. No. That was out of the question. He would call Mom. Get her to bring him clothes. He glanced at the clock, did calculations. “There’s not enough time,” he whispered. “I need more time.”

He didn’t have more time. In five minutes, the rest of the kids would come back to the locker room to change. Carl could not bear the thought of being here when all the other boys came back, sweaty and shouty. As horrified as he was at the thought of wearing a skirt, he certainly couldn’t be seen running around school in these shorts. He’d seen how he looked, and no. No!

He couldn’t bear the thought of anymore kids seeing him— practically naked. “I’m going to kill you!” He shouted, pushing his shorts down his long legs. He was so distracted he did not even notice he was wearing girl’s underwear. He grabbed his skirt and stepped into it, hoping whoever was doing this to him could hear him screaming. “I am going to destroy you for this!” Grabbing his blouse, Carl pulled it on, tucking it into his skirt. It was much like a boy’s shirt, accept the buttons were on the wrong side and it featured a rounded, feminine collar. He put on his dickie, and making a puking sound, picked up the shiny patent leather Mary Janes, with the sparkling buckle. Sitting, his skirt rode up, and he squirmed uncomfortably as he felt the cold bench against his bare thighs. There had been a pair of knee high socks in his locker, but in one last defiant attempt to cling to at least an ounce of masculine dignity, he refused to wear them, instead slipping the tiny shoes onto his now tiny feet, buckling them. Standing up, he felt the skirt flow around his legs. Ignoring the sensation, he grabbed “his” backpack, screaming one last time as he slung the pink and white My Little Kitty backpack over his shoulder.

‘I’m 17!” He screamed once more at his unseen tormenter. “Like, I would still be into kittens. Idiot!” The door to the locker room slammed opened as the boys came barreling in from the gym. Carl ran for the other exit, the one that led to the school, his heart racing. He did NOT want Matt Manning to see him like this!

Matt saw what looked from the back like a tall girl running from the room, her skirt swaying in a most fetching manner. “Was that Carl in a skirt?” He asked one of the other guys.

“That dude is messed up,” the guy said.

Matt dropped the subject. He was having very strange feelings toward Carl Bright and his stunning legs. He wasn’t sure what to make of them. 

Walking, something Carl had taken for granted and done with ease since he’d first learned to move about on two feet rather than all fours, no longer felt right. Carl could certainly walk, but what had felt easy and natural, now felt awkward and unbalanced. It was not his shoes. It can be said with no doubt they looked quite adorable on his precious little feet, the buckles sparkling with each hurried stride. It was more that his legs now felt as if they were too long and set too far apart. Indeed, thought Carl remained his former 6’ 1” in height, his legs had grown in proportion to his torso, which had shrunk, giving him the stork-like appearance common to lithe young ladies. His hips, while slender by female standards, were wider and rounder than they had been, and of course, he now had a lot more ‘junk in the trunk’ to use the parlance of your times. These changes combined to force Carl to put a little wiggle in his walk, which was quite unnerving and felt decidedly unmasculine. Indeed, as I related earlier, Carl’s walk was decidedly feminine, as if he had spent hours working on perfecting a lady-like gait, so his sense that he was “walking like a girl” was not wrong, though he actually had no idea how feminine his walk had become. Let us come right out and say it: Carl now moved more gracefully than most every girl at the school, appearing almost as if he were floating and not walking at all. Yet, to him, it all felt awkward and wrong.

He kept his eyes on the ground as he hurried to class. For the first time since his last growth spurt, he regretted being tall. It was impossible to hide when you towered over just about everyone. More, his lowered face was not hidden from those who must gaze up at him, and so girls and boys alike let their eyes ride up those magnificent gams to find the face of Carl Bright, basketball and baseball star, staring at the ground, his cheeks red with shame as his skirt swirled around his legs.

Oh, yes. I should mention Carl’s feeling about his skirt. There has been something of a trend of late— boys wearing shorter shorts, like those worn by NBA stars back in the 1970s before Chris Webber and the “Fab Five” popularized long, baggy shorts. So, you will see young men now wearing shorts that come to mid-thigh. These are the boys out in front, the ones on the cutting edge of fashion. Carl was no such boy. He had continued to wear baggy shorts that came down to his knees. So, with his new skirt coming only to mid-thigh, Carl felt cool air swirling around his long, smooth legs more fully than he ever had before. It made him feel— vulnerable. Exposed. Further, he could feel his skirt swishing around as he walked, caressing his legs with delicate little movement. The skirt did not provide the same sense of security as shorts. It felt like it might flip up at any moment, giving the whole school a glimpse of— more of Carl. So, in addition to the simple fact that Carl believed skirts were for girls, and wearing one made him less of a boy, wearing one did automatically fill him with a decidedly feminine sense of insecurity and vulnerability that he most certainly did not want to embrace.

Carl burst into his Economics classroom, going straight to his usual desk, draping his My Little Kitty backpack over the chair and sliding into his seat, his skirt once more riding up his legs. With a squeak and a grimace, he rose back up, smoothing his skirt as he sat back down, then he slumped in his seat, exhausted from the stress. Years of habit kicked in, and his mind turned to reviewing the material for the Eco test, which he had memorized and was now reciting in his head. This scene reveals, I must point out, just how strong Carl’s mind truly was, despite the fact he now spoke like a scatterbrained dingbat. How many young men could find themselves dressed as a girl, sporting a pair of sexy female legs, and just forget all about that as they focused on their schoolwork? Not many, I will suggest. Maybe only one.

“Ahem.”

Carl, who’d been twisting a strand of hair around his fingers as he mentally prepared, looked up to see the teacher standing next to his desk, arms crossed, looking stern. “Um, ya?” Carl said.

“Carli…” teacher started.

“It’s Carl?”

“Well, Carl. Why are you wearing a girl’s uniform?”

“O— mahgod,” Carl said. “This is sooo embarrassing. Well, it all started while we were playing volleyball, and I was, like, I got it I got it!—”

“Okay. Stop. You can’t wear a girl’s uniform. It is against the dress code. You need to go to the office.”

There were titters and snickers from the other students, who’d been drifting into the room. 

“But, there’s a test today?”

“Office. Now.”

“Wait! Please? Please please pretty please let me take the test first? Please?”

The teacher frowned. “Only because I know something has been going on with you and Sunni and this—“ Dr. Ben waved toward Carl’s clothes— “probably isn’t your fault. Fine. But, Carl, one thing.”

“Oui?” 

“Close your legs. Everyone can see your panties.”

Carl squealed and slammed his legs shut while the class laughed. He heard someone say, “He’s wearing panties?”

Carl’s cheeks turned an even deeper shade of red, the blush spreading across his nose. He tugged at the hem of his skirt, wishing it were longer, or that he was, like, wearing boy pants! He became conscious of the way his soft thighs felt, pressed together, and he stewed in the horror that not only was he wearing panties, but that people had SEEN them. I’m going to die, he thought. I’m going to have to run away to Paris and live on the street like an urchin from Les Miserable! I’ll never live this down! My reputation is ruined!

In that moment of melodramatic teen-age angst, and let us be honest, Carl’s reputation as a boy had suffered an egregious blow which would probably follow him the rest of the year and all the way to the 20 year class reunion, Carl had every intention of fleeing the country. But not until after he aced the Economics test.

Which he did.

Once he’d submitted his test, Carl got his backpack and left class, heading toward the office as he’d been told. However, he diverted to the bathroom and once inside, he got out his phone— which he had to keep in his bag now since his skirt had no pockets- another reason skirts are dumb, he thought— and he called Mom. “Mom?” He said, making his voice extra sweet.

“What is it?” Mom said, clearly annoyed. “I was just about to head out to yoga.”

“I have an emergency. Can you bring me one of my uniforms?” Don’t ask why. Don’t ask why. Don’t ask why.

“Why?” Carl could hear stairs creaking as his mom headed toward his room. 

“Someone stole my clothes.”

“Sunni!” Mom hissed. “That’s it! I’m calling her parents.”

“It wasn’t Sunni.” 

“Who was it, then?” He heard the sound of a door opening and closing. The sound of hangars being shoved around.

“I’ll explain everything when you get here?” 

Mom was silent. Carl waited. He could sense something was wrong. “Mom?”

“Maybe you need to explain right now,” Mom said. “Carl, what is going on?”

“Why? What happened?”

“There’s nothing in your closet but— girl clothes.”

“Waaaaaa?”

Sunni changed about the same time as Carl, as near as I recall, dearest reader. It’s hard since they were in two different places, and I am a limited omniscient narrator. Obviously. Or, I would already know who was behind this whole thing, and I am dying to find out. Perhaps I should pause here, in fact, to share with you some details of Millmore’s investigation?

No. I suspect you are more interested in Sunni. Let me tell you about her, and then I will let you know about Millmore later. Yes. That makes sense.

So, Sunni found herself in her Women’s Studies class, sitting in her usual desk, tugging on her beard as her teacher, Dr. Anne Carpenter, discussed historical evidence that in Viking culture women fought alongside men. “The preponderance of evidence suggests,” she was saying, a slide of an ancient carving portraying a woman warrior with a spear and a shield flickering on the screen behind her, “that the notion that women were not suited to fighting is a relatively new conception brought about by the also new concept of male rule, or, in other words, patriarchy.”

Just as Dr. Carpenter paused to allow her point to sink in, and as the young women sitting in attendance jotted down their notes, Sunni had the strangest sensation that her desk was shrinking. Indeed, whereas she’d fit comfortably within it over the course of many years, her knees now banged into the desktop. As alarming as such a feeling was, it was immediately supplanted by a sense that the room itself was shrining, as were her classmates who seemed to somehow be dropping below her eye line until she was looking down on their pretty heads. Panicking, she looked left and right, and whereas she once would have met the other girls’ stunned faces on roughly eye-level, she now found them all looking up, their chins raised, as their mouths fell open.

“What’s happening?” Sunni’s voice boomed. Sunni, being quite intelligent, realized almost immediately that the room and her classmates were not, in fact, shrinking. She had grown. Not a short girl, she’d sprouted from her comfortable 5’ 8” a full six inches, so she was now 6’ 2” tall and much too large for the formerly perfectly sized desk.

“Your entitled male friend has played another of his sexist pranks,” Dr. Carpenter said in a dour and disapproving voice. “He seems to consider tall a male trait, akin, say, to a beard. He really is in need of sensitivity training.”

Sunni unfolded herself from her desk. Her arms and legs felt gangly and ridiculous to her. She spread her arms wide judging immediately that her wingspan now exceeded six feet. Dr. Carpenter, a tall woman herself at nearly 6’ looked up at Sunni. “Please sit,” she said. “I have not concluded my lecture.”

It was only when Sunni sat, sweeping her hand under her to smooth her skirt, that she realized she was now wearing pants. She looked down to see the boy’s tie draping down her dress shirt, which fit a little too tightly in the chest area now, as it was tailored for a boy. “Sorry,” she said, even as she struggled with a welling of conflicting feelings crowding her brain.

“Never apologize,” Dr. Carpenter said. “It makes you seem weak.”

Nothing felt right. Sunni’s hands had changed in proportion to her new size, and her pen felt tiny and hard to grip. It took practice to find the right distance and position to write properly, and her knees! They were pressing against the desktop. 

We must examine and discuss Sunni’s experience. She lived in an era in which girls routinely dressed in clothes that once coded “male.” She had done a little playful crossdressing herself, one year putting on a football uniform for the homecoming parade. There was a difference, though, in choosing to dress “boy” and having someone else force her into a boys’ uniform in the middle of a normal school day in which there was no “open space” for experimentation. I have pointed out already that Grand Old Carrollwood was quite bound by tradition and rules. Dressing as a boy without a safe reason— Halloween, for example, or a sanctioned Gender Swap Day, was a violation of these traditions, and Sunni felt herself blushing in shame, even so far as to feel like a gender traitor. She and many other girls had long complained of the outdated requirement that girls wear skirt. Not that they minded the skirt in and of itself. They chose to wear them on their free time when they wanted to. It was being required to wear a skirt as some sort of outward show of their femininity, which in a patriarchal culture had been inscribed as a show of submission, that they objected. Nevertheless, forced to wear skirts, she and the other girls had chosen to see it as a symbol of their shared repression, a sign that bound them all together in a sisterhood that would change the world! Now, dressed in men’s slacks, was she no longer a sister?

She hoped her fellow females would understand this was not her choice.

Her height, too, posed problems.

In past years, indeed, height had been a “male” quality. Even in the late 20th Century, if a girl grew too quickly, her anxious parents would seek medical help, putting her on drugs in order to stop her from getting too tall. It was widely believed, and not without some truth, that a tall girl would have a very difficult time finding a husband. The proper romantic couple was always depicted as an adoring female gazing up at her man. Indeed, would it surprise the reader to know that if a male actor was shorter than his female counter part, the entire film he would be standing on boxes in order not to disturb the viewer with the terrifying image of a man gazing up at a woman?

Sunni, despite her years of study and absolute commitment to female equality, which included dismantling all such notions of gender relations, had yet liked herself at her height. She felt she was, indeed, just the right size for a 21st Century girl. Despite her commitment to equality, however, she had been influenced by the media, and she had never dated a boy who was not tall enough that it required her to tilt her head back to gaze into his handsome face.

So, her own identity was threatened by her new, unladylike size, and she felt humiliated to be in a room of her peers- now a cross-dressing giant. 

This is all to say that Sunni’s changes were quite as unnerving to her as those faced by Carl, though some might think there was little but advantage in being tall and wearing the more functional cloths allowed to the young men.

Sunni watched the clock, meaning to call her mother and request a change of clothes, just as Carl had done. But, just as the minute hand was about to click over and the bell ring, the intercom squawked and a voice called, “Sunni Linn, please come to the office.”

Sunni’s heart sunk. She was in trouble. And Sunni Linn had never been in trouble!

The bell rang. Sunni untangled her long limbs from the desk. She stood and made her way to the door, now towering over all but one of the young women around her. They gave her space, intimidated by her size. Hailey Waters, who stood 6’ tall herself, made her way over to Sunni. “Welcome to the tribe.”

“Pardon?”

“The tall tribe. We are a special people.”

“Thanks. I guess.”

“You need to come out for the basketball team,” she said.

“Just because I’m tall?” Sunni said.

“Yeah,” Hailey said, chucking her on the shoulder. “Pretty much.”

Walking down the hall, Sunni was shocked at how different the world looked from above. Instead of being on roughly the same eye-line girls and slightly below most of the boys, she now found herself looking down on almost everyone. It made her feel self-conscious. Once more, the sense that she was not as close to her classmates as she was used to and loved, invaded her soul and left her cold. Sunni loved people, and she loved being among people, part of the group. She did not feel that as she waded through the crowded halls of Carrolwood Academy. She felt rather like a giraffe striding aloof, a herd of sheep milling about beneath her. As she ran into friends along the way, she found herself slumping over, trying to look at them face to face. It did not work. The sightlines were still all wrong.  Plus, her friends were freaked out by her giant hands.

Incidentally, dear reader, we have just witnessed the impossible. You see, Sunni was known, among other things, for having perfect posture. At all times. Whether she was sitting, standing, walking, running, doing yoga, roller skating, jumping rope— really, any task you can imagine, her spine was perfectly aligned. Until now. Perhaps this astounding sight, the impossible and confounding sight of Sunni slouching, was even more shocking than her growth spurt!

While Sunni found herself quite displeased with what being a giant meant in term of her relationship to other students, she did also realize an advantage: she could now see the whole length of the hall. It made her feel— powerful— to be able to look all the way to the end of the hall, to see everything that was going on up and down the hall. 

In any case, as she moved toward the office, Sunni’s mind turned to why she’d been called down. How could they have heard she’d turned into a giant? She didn’t know. She would soon find out.

Chapter Eight

Millmore had his back to a wall of lockers and sidled along them, his face largely covered by a large, floppy hat in a banana yellow that did not look good on him at all despite the fact that he was sure the hat made him look devilishly handsome. Millmore had completed his profile. Child’s play. He’d narrowed his list of suspects. Now, the tricky part. Narrowing the list to one and bringing that person to justice. To that end, Millmore had snuck down the hall, and now waited outside the computer lab, where one of his suspects had gone to “work” during study hour. The student in question was a bit OCD, and always left the lab at precisely 12:43 to wash their hands. Millmore looked at his fob watch. 12:42. Perfect. He waited. Just as expected, the door to the lab opened. Millmore remained flat against the lockers, and as soon as his suspect’s echoing steps disappeared down the hall, he slipped into the computer lab, went right to the computer station where his suspect had been working, and looked at their browser history.

Why? You may ask. 

Flashback!

When Millmore had first heard of the case, he’d believed that what was happening was completely novel. In fact, he’d been quite excited to unlock the secrets of a mind that would conceive of this gender swapping crime. Then, his research had led him to a website called Fictionmadness. Here, Millmore found a repository of what was known as gender swap fiction— thousand upon thousands of stories. Mildly intrigued, he began skimming over a story called Team Spirit, in which a male quarterback was slowly transformed into a busty blonde with a little girl’s voice and then forced to work as a stripper. When Millmore finished the story, he felt hot and thirsty. His head swam. He kept thinking about a scene in the story where the quarterback is forced to start wearing high heels. He refused, at first, but then got bullied into it. Then, later a line, “He wore heels all the time now. He didn’t even notice.”

Millmore shivered with a strange new pleasure at the thought of the formerly macho man, mincing around in his heels, accepting it as part of his new life. It stunned him. He loved it. Having finished reading the story, though he would never stop being haunted by it, Millmore had looked at the clock. Remember, this had happened at night some days ago. It was 10:43. Millmore needed to get to bed. In fact, his parents thought he was in bed and not under his covers with his smart pad glowing. 

One more story, he decided. For research. He found one called Lab Rat. In this one, too, a dirt bag guy is turned into a busty blonde. He, too, ends up with a little girl voice. They feminizers use subliminal messages to make him obsess over women’s clothes. They shorten the tendons in his legs, so he has no choice but to wear high heels all the time. He becomes his own fantasy girl. His wife laughs at him.

Once more, Millmore’s mind buzzed with a mysterious new sense of delight. It might have confused him, but he didn’t stop to analyze. He just read another story and another story and another story… cheating husbands turned into little girls and raised by their aggrieved wives as daughters… bad boys becoming good girls… good boys becoming bad girls…. When his smart pad chimed, telling him it was time to get up and go to school, Millmore was shocked to realize he’d been reading all night.

Research, he told himself as he climbed out of bed. Research. Yet, when he went to the bathroom to brush his teeth, he found himself wondering what he would look like as a blonde.

But what does all that have to do with the case? Very much. All day long at school, Millmore found himself thinking of the stories he’d read. He also found himself really wishing he had Jenny Halston’s hair, but that was another issue. His detective instinct was telling him there was something more to his digression into gender bender fiction. Something more to do with the case. He pondered the question even while he watched Sarah Paul putting on lip gloss— and felt a pang of jealousy.

As is often the case, it was when Millmore stopped thinking about the case that the answer came to him. He’d been forced to concentrate his attention on dissecting a frog— a virtual frog, to be sure, but it was still pretty disgusting. As he focused on his task, a thought had popped into his head, and he’d shouted, “Eureka!”

Doctor Emerson, used to Millmore’s eccentricities, had simply given him a weary look that said, “again?”

As soon as class was over, Millmore ran to his locker, pulled out his smart pad and did a keyword search on Fictionmadness. The admins really did run a first-rate site, he noted as he skimmed through the results. Then- bingo. The story was called Carrolwood. The synopsis read: They thought they were so great. But Charly and Suni-chan are about to be taken down a peg! A gender swap revenge fantasy! Or, is it?

The author’s name was UltimateJusticeMachine. It had been posted the day before the swaps started. The perpetrator was not only a fan of gender swap fiction, Millmore realized, but an aspiring author! Millmore was thrilled. Find out who was logging into Fictionmadness, find out who was swapping Carl and Sunni.

Flashback over.

We return to the computer lab. Millmore looks through the search history. Thanks to Google and people being careless and not logging out of their accounts, Millmore can search through weeks of postings. He is disappointed to discover not a single visit to Fictionmadness in Kennedy’s history, though there are many hits to a site called “Furries.” Millmore hears the doorknob rattling. He looks up and sees a shadowy figure through the glass, about to enter. He exits out of the Browser History and slides three seats down, quickly looking nonchalant as he pretends to type as Kennedy enters and goes back to her computer.

Millmore wonders what it’s like to be Kennedy, with that glowing skin, as he decided he might as well pop into Fictionmadness. He hits on a story set in what’s called the Spells R’ Us Universe. He begins to read.